Do you make connections between disciplines in your teaching?

The benefits of interdisciplinary learning and teaching are fairly well accepted, yet many teachers struggle to put it into practice.

In our small attempt to make interdisciplinary teaching easier, we've incorporated in English Language Arts into almost every Montana history lesson we've created in the last ten years and aligned all of our material with both the social studies standards and the Common Core ELA standards (and, where appropriate, the Essential Understandings regarding Montana Indians).

But did you know that we have made a concerted effort to integrate art, science, and math, too? To make it easier to identify our interdisciplinary lesson and unit plans, I've created a new page on our website, creatively named Interdisciplinary Lesson Plans. Here you can find lessons that ask students to apply math skills to better understand the past or that teach both history and science (or art or creative writing).

And if interdisciplinary teaching appeals to you, and you live within a reasonable drive of Deer Lodge, Dillon, or Missoula, don't forget to attend "Crossing Disciplines: Social Studies, Art, and the Common Core."  Workshop leader Jim Schulz (an award-winning, 30-year classroom veteran, who taught science and social studies at Helena Middle School and Helena High School) is among the very best presenters I've ever learned from. If you chose to spend the day with him, you won't go away sorry. Learn more and find links to register here. (OPI Renewal Units will be available.)

More IEFA Resources and PD

A few weeks ago, I posted an IEFA resources roundup, asking at the end, as I always do, for folks to send me other resources to share.

Jennifer Stadum, from OPI's Indian Education department, sent a link to a CNN story, "European colonizers killed so many Native Americans that it changed the global climate, researchers say." This article translates the scientific study I mentioned in the post ("Earth System Impacts of the European Arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492") for lay people and is a much more accessible source to use with students.

The Western Montana Professional Learning Collaborative is once again offering its IEFA online book club course, "The Seven Essential Understandings Regarding Montana Indians." Running March 18 to May 12, the course is designed for educators interested in building background knowledge and developing lesson plans that focus on the Essential Understandings. Through readings, discussion forums and examination of high-quality teaching materials, participants will explore a variety of literature, articles and professional teaching materials and develop five lesson plans during the course and a final reflection paper (an additional final project is required for graduate credit) for the immediate integration of IEFA into their classrooms. Texts will include The Framework: A Practical Guide for Montana Teachers and Administrators Implementing Indian Education for All by Tammy Elser, Who Will Tell my Brother? by Marlene Carvel, excerpts from Do All Indians Live in Tipis by National Museum of the American Indian  and Lies my Teachers Told Me by James W. Loewen, Montana Tribal Histories: Educators Resource Guide by Julie Cajune, History and Foundation of American Indian Education by Stan Juneau, and Keeping Promises: What is Sovereignty and Other Questions about Indian Country by Betty Reid and Ben Winton. The registration fee is $175. Participants will receive 30 OPI Renewal Units or 2 Semester Credits (semester credit is offered through the University of Montana and is an additional fee of $155. The course instructor will provide a separate registration form). Find more information here and register here.

PRI's The World published "Ignored and deported, Cree 'refugees' echo the crises of today," an article by Brenden W. Rensink, Assistant Director of the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies and author of the book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands. The article reminded me of two lesson/unit plans we have relating topic: 

• "Montana's Landless Indians and the Assimilation Era of Federal Indian Policy: A Case of Contradiction" is a week-long primary-source based unit designed to introduce students to the history of the landless Métis, Cree, and Chippewa Indians in Montana between 1889 and 1916, while giving them an opportunity to do their own guided analysis of historical and primary source materials. In this Common Core-aligned unit, students will wrestle with issues of perspective, power, ideology, and prejudice and will closely examine the role Montana newspapers played in shaping public opinion toward the tribes’ attempts to maintain economic independence and gain a land base and political recognition.


• "Sun Dance in Silver Bow: Urban Indian Poverty in the Shadow of the Richest Hill on Earth" is a PowerPoint-based lesson plan that explores the complexity underpinning the change-over (or reconfiguration) of the West (and particularly Montana) from Aboriginal lands into Euro-American hands at the end of the nineteenth century.

I saw this article on in the New York Times about Australian aborigine's use of fire and how important that is for creating habitat for animals in the outback. It reminded me of the Fire History project created by the Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Fire on the Land. (In addition to being available online, the Indian Education Department of the Montana Office of Public Instruction also sent a copy of this DVD to all public school libraries.)

Our compatriots at the Wyoming Historical Society recently published two relevant articles on WyoHistory.org: Managing Game on the Wind River Reservation and Holding on to Sovereignty: The Tribes Mix Old Forms with New. Notifications about those posts sent me down a rabbit hole, exploring their website, where I found a number of "Digital Toolkits" that I think would interest Montana teachers. "Aimed at secondary levels and above" ... "each toolkit contains:

1. A background summary of the topic.
2. Links to relevant primary-source documents—maps, photos, letters, etc.
3. Links to more detailed WyoHistory.org articles on the topic.
4. Exercises encouraging students to write about or otherwise encounter the topic.
5. Bibliographies and links for further information and research...."

Toolkits include Father De Smet’s Map: Tribal boundaries and the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and American Indians in World War I.  

Finally, Arlee teacher Anna Baldwin pointed me to this three-part video from NBA.com about the Arlee Warriors basketball team and that addresses suicide, historical trauma and other significant contemporary issues.

As always, send along anything you think is worth sharing! You are where the best stuff comes from.

Field Trip Season Is Fast Approaching

Despite the masses of snow on the ground, we can tell by the number of phone calls we are receiving to schedule tours that field trip season is almost upon us.

Especially during legislative sessions, many schools like to come to the capital city to watch democracy in action. Sadly, because of last year's budget cuts, we are no longer providing tours of the capitol this legislative session. We are hoping that we will be able to re-institute them soon (we'll see after the legislature finalizes this year's budget.) For now all groups are on their own when arriving to the Capitol, though you may wish to get in touch with a legislator from your district to see if he or she can accommodate your group while you are at the Capitol.  

To make your job as tour leader easier, we have produced a special interactive guide for you to download. It is aimed at high school students, but adaptable for other grades. There are also self-guiding tour booklets (a great resource for teacher led tours) and a scavenger hunt  for kids led by Lewis and Clark’s intrepid Newfoundland, Seaman, that are available to pick up at the information desk on the first floor of the Capitol. We hope you and your students enjoy these resources.

Although we are not providing guided tours of the capitol, we are still offering tours at the Original Governor's Mansion and Montana's Museum, including special tours of the Mackay Gallery of Russell Art led by none other than Nancy Russell herself (as played by Mary Jane Bradbury). A full list of our museum tours is here; and here is more information about booking an Original Governor's Mansion tour. All school tours are provided free of charge.

Finally, last spring, I shared ideas for making your field trips more than a day out. They included having students create before and after concept maps to demonstrate learning, as well as specific pre- and post-field trip ideas for sites curated by the Montana Historical Society (including the capitol, the Original Governor's Mansion and the Museum). Find them here.

Back in the saddle again... MHS is coming to Deer Lodge, Missoula and Dillon

The Montana Historical Society is very excited to be sending veteran teacher and workshop leader extraordinaire Jim Schulz back on the road this April with the workshop Crossing Disciplines: Art, Social Studies and the Common Core. This time, Jim will be traveling to Deer Lodge (April 9), Missoula (April 10) and Dillon (April 11).

 The workshop (which can be taken for 6 OPI Renewal Credits) is designed to

• Provide instructional strategies (including Visual Thinking Strategies) that can be adopted to any topic and most disciplines
• Encourage teachers to think about using and creating interdisciplinary units
• Introduce teachers to specific lesson plans that they can use in their Montana history, US history, social studies, art, or ELA classes
• Offer a strong Indian Education for All component.

We’ve brought versions of this workshop to other parts of the state (eastern Montana, the Hi-Line, and northwestern Montana), where it received rave reviews:

• “One of the most productive and informational PIR workshops I have ever done…”
• “I really enjoyed the workshop. It gave me new tools…”
• “Learning about VTS was an eye-opener….”
• “Jim's workshop inspired to me reflect on my teaching practice … he reminded me of the importance of including ALL students in class discussions.”

You can find the detailed schedule and links to register on our website: http://mhs.mt.gov/education/ConferencesWorkshops/EducatorWorkshops.

We hope you can come! And we hope you'll help us spread the word. Please share this information and the registration links with colleagues you think may be interested.

How would you teach about livestock and the Open Range?

Last December, I wrote about having students design a brochure for (and then pretend to take) a time travel vacation. The idea--which I found on Russell Tarr's amazing site--is to have students consider multiple viewpoints, first by selling the positives of a certain time or place in the brochure. And then, in a complaint letter about the vacation from hell, highlighting all the problems.

Since then, a teacher planning a new course in Montana history asked me to suggest activities to accompany Chapter 8, "Livestock and the Open Range, 1850-1887," of our textbook, Montana: Stories of the Land. My first thought was that this would be a perfect time period with which try out Russell Tarr's time-travel idea.

Before writing their student recruitment brochure, I'd have students start their investigation by analyzing such Charlie Russell paintings as Laugh Kills Lonesome, and Bronc to Breakfast,  using Visual Thinking Strategies. After listening to a cowboy song like "My Home's in Montana," I'd ask them to "write their way in" by spending 3 minutes answering this question in writing, without regard to grammar, spelling or punctuation: "What do they think of when they think about cowboys and the Old West?"

After a discussion about about the appeal of the cowboy myth, I'd have them work in small groups to research life on the open range and to create the two written products:

1. a brochure selling a vacation on the cattle frontier.
2. a complaint letter to the tour company, detailing all the ways the fantasy didn't match the reality.

Here are some sources students might want to use to do research for both the brochure and the complaint letter:

• Montana: Stories of the Land Chapter 8 - Livestock and the Open Range, 1850-1887 
• Excerpts from "Cow Tales," a reminiscence by Harry Rutter, which we've selected for one of the chapter 8 Learning from Historical Document units
• photographs of L. A. Huffman and Evelyn Cameron, who documented life on the open range
• The short essays about ranching history and culture on the Grant Kohrs NHL website (the easiest way to find them is to go to the site map and scroll down until you reach the links listed under the head "history and culture.")
• Excerpts from Mary Alderson's A Bride Goes West and Teddy Blue Abbott's We Pointed Them North, two published reminiscences about life on the cattle frontier.

After students complete their brochures but before they write their complaint letters, you might want to help them switch gears with another VTS activity, this time of Charlie Russell's Last of the 5000 or Waiting for Chinook. 

This activity is a more research intensive (and possibly more fun) version of the one of the critical thinking questions listed at the end of chapter 8: “Look back at the Russell paintings that illustrate chapter (could expand to additional cowboy paintings.) Do you think they offer a realistic picture of life on the open range?"

How do you teach about Montana and the Open Range? According to a survey we did several years ago, it is one of many teachers' favorite chapters to teach, so I'm sure there are many great ideas and activities out there. Please send me yours, so I can share it out.

IEFA Resources Roundup

It's past time for another post on IEFA (Indian Education for All) topics and resources that have caught my eye--or more likely, been brought to my attention by readers and colleagues.

This video does a great job surveying major eras in American Indian policy and explaining sovereignty all in 2 minutes and 41 seconds!

The Smithsonian Magazine published an interesting article on the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty: "In 1868, Two Nations Made a Treaty, the U.S. Broke It and Plains Indian Tribes are Still Seeking Justice."

That treaty is available online (with a transcription) from the National Archives. How do I know? Billings High School teacher Cheyenne Aldrich wrote to let me know about a session she attended, given by the National Archives at the National Council for Social Studies annual conference on resources in the archives relating to native communities. As a take home, the archives created a dandy handout of links, which Cheyenne shared. In poking through the handout, I not only found out how to search for treaties, but also about the National Archives' research guides, which suggests search terms to find relevant information on Montana tribes in the National Archives catalog.

Speaking of the National Archives, several years ago, University of Montana sent several students to Washington, D.C., to scan documents--"65,000 pages from 126 boxes of Bureau of Indian Affairs records (Record Group 75) held at the National Archives in Washington, D.C." These documents, which include letters, reports, photographs, petitions, leases, bonds, wills, and other legal documents, are available on the Montana Memory Project in a collection called the Natives of Montana Archival Project (NOMAP). They are an underused treasure trove, which includes a 1931 letter describing the problem of malnutrition among Blackfeet children in 1931, a 1913 letter complaining about the July 4 celebrations in Browning (a "Fully two-thirds of these people are still addicted to medicine practices and pagan superstitions"), letters from Salish hero Sam Resurrection, protesting the opening of the Flathead Reservation to homesteaders (Select "download all as a PDF" and see particularly pages 10-13 of the document), and more. NOMAP will be one of the collections Director Jennifer Birnel will explore at the March 2-3, Best Practices in Indian Education for All conference, for which you can register here.

And speaking of upcoming professional development, 2014 Montana Teacher of the Year Anna Baldwin is presenting "Unpacking Bias in a Reservation School" as part of this Teaching Tolerance online course, which runs February to June. (Registration closes today--sorry for such late notice).

Finally, my colleague Stan Wilmoth shared an article published in Quaternary Science Reviews with this unwieldy title: "Earth System Impacts of the European Arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492." The article is too hard for all but the most advanced high school students (I think) but I found its conclusions fascinating enough to include a link to it in this round-up. Basically, the paper argues that the disease, slavery, and warfare brought by European conquerors (beginning in 1492) killed approximately 55 million indigenous people, 90 percent of the inhabitants of the Americas. "The Great Dying," as the authors call it, led to billions of acres of farmland being abandoned (56 million hectares). That farmland became forest, and those new forests sequestered enough CO2 to make global surface air temperatures decline. In other words, human behavior created climate change (in this case global cooling) before the industrial revolution.

Got a great resource you think other teachers would like to know about? Let me know and I'll share!

MHS Starts Facebook Book Club

Guest post by Barbara Pepper-Rotness

To celebrate the 130th anniversary of Montana statehood, MHS has launched a virtual book group that will study Ken Egan’s 2017 publication, Montana 1889: Indians, Cowboys, and Miners in the Year of Statehood.  Each month throughout 2019, the author will post prompting questions to the group and respond to readers’ comments to facilitate lively conversations about topics that are still important to Montanans today.  MHS Photo Archives Manager Jeff Malcomson will assist Egan by suggesting further reading in related areas of Montana and Western history and helping to answer any history-related questions that readers may have. The group is being organized by MHS reference librarian Barbara Pepper-Rotness who noted that, since Montana is the proverbial small town with long streets, she is “super excited to carry on a neighborly conversation that utilizes the advantages offered by social media to bring people together.”

In addition to monthly readings and discussion, MHS will have four quarterly on-site ‘meetings’ to bring in experts on relevant subjects. The first gathering is tentatively scheduled for April. Watch for details later!

You can join Revisting Montana 1889: A Book Group here.